Is it good to think positively?
I seek serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and might find it in denial. I will die, but it is not good to dwell on the fact. Before courage to change the things I can I need motivation, made of belief and desire. Desire is a site of my inner conflicts, between what my heart craves and what I have been taught I ought to want. What belief is beneficial?
Looking at any past experience, I would seek all the good in it: all the delight, all the learning, all the evidence of my good qualities or value, or the beneficence of the world. I evolved to fit, here. The world does not revolve around me, but is not out to get me either.
Denial might be a good thing. I read that giving birth is the greatest pain a human can experience, and some women who have done it more than once report forgetting the pain. We construct narratives to understand but also to cope with experience- “Yes it is painful but it is worth it”.
Dwelling on the negative aspects of past experience might make me withdraw. I cannot bear doing that again. Denying the negative aspects of past experience made me withdraw, arguably: I denied them until they were unbearable. So positivity is not a safe space, a simple concept that will always do me good, but a tightrope.
And, we spend ourselves. My body is deteriorating, and doing something until you cannot do it any more may be worthwhile. Even if I avoided everything that will deplete or damage me, I will still die.
I want a positive narrative for My Life So Far. “My world became smaller and smaller until I was finally trapped inside a prison of my own devising.” I read that and was amazed at how it could fit me. I could be crushed under the weight of my own responsibility for my dire situation. Instead, I blame someone else:
I suppressed my true self for a false ego, because I was terrified of death. My parents imposed that ego on me because of their own terrors and their bad experiences. Despite generational trauma my true self survived, and I am discovering her, liberating her, letting her flower. I will continue growing into freedom. I will use my gifts for what I see to be good.
Self-blame depresses and enervates me. Blaming someone else and casting my own actions as unavoidable, or heroic struggle, will make me able to go on. This too is a tightrope, but I feel far from the risk of self-satisfaction stopping me from making an effort.
Considering where I am now: my situation is pretty dire. My CV is unattractive. There, positivity is worthwhile: make it as good as you can, by describing everything winsomely. The obvious action is to do some voluntary work to show I am capable of something. I don’t. Here I have no motivation for the rational choice. But when I want to write something, I do that first.
I choose to believe my feelings and my heart’s desire is a worthwhile guide to my flourishing. My priority is letting the feelings flow. This is being positive about myself. The negativity of my childhood- that self is bad and dangerous, hide it away- harmed me.
I need faith. I need to believe in myself and the world sufficiently to believe action might be worthwhile, and setbacks are not final.
A horse, and a cigarette advert. Is this place trapped in the early twentieth century? Woodbines are still available, and only new advertising is restricted by law.